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Why Isn’t South Africa Mourning Desmond Tutu Like The Rest of The World?
Uncomfortable questions must be asked.
Since the death of Archbishop Desmond Tutu was announced a few days ago, tributes have been pouring in from world leaders, describing the late clergyman as the conscience of the Republic of South Africa.
The tributes from the likes of Barack Obama, Kamala Harris, Boris Johnson et al have been platitudinous at best and profoundly nonsensical at worst.
On this platform, writers have been falling over themselves to eulogize Tutu. A few feted scribes wrote of his unsuccessful efforts in pushing for American universities to divest their investments in the apartheid regime in the 1980s.
Along with Nelson Mandela, the late Archbishop occupied a special place in the eyes of the west, as the dignified, peace loving, non-vengeance seeking Black man, with whom they could do business; there was something about the smiling, anodyne black guy in cassock, that endeared him to faux liberal Europeans and Americans.
This view was further cemented when Tutu presided over the truth and reconciliation commission, granting amnesty to those who committed the worst atrocities against the Black majority during the apartheid years.